B-29 "DOC" Restoration Project

 

Volunteers - George and Carol Young

My Story by George Young I moved to Wichita after finishing my junior year of high school in Oklahoma. I went to the Boeing employment office looking for a job and was told I was too young but if I could get my parents to sign a letter they would see what they could find. I convinced my Dad to write the letter as long as I stayed in school. Boeing hired me in May 1943 for $.50 per hour. I was sent to sheet metal school on North Waco Street for six weeks. I was then assigned to the forward 42 (bomb bay) section. I helped install the frame work and drilled out the skins and prepared them for riveting. I was then making $.65 per hour as much as most adults earned. It was a great job and I knew it.

Soon my parents qualified for one of the new homes being built in Planeview. Because rationing allowed three (3) gallons per week of gas it was necessary to car pool to work so I went with Dad and a few others. I also worked on the B-29 that made a forced belly landing beside the runway. I remember drilling damaged skins off the lower sections. It was packed with mud, rocks, and grass. Planeview had a movie theater, Walgreens Drug Store, a bowling alley, two grocery stores, a bakery and other business. All brand new. Movies played day and night. It cost $.25 to ride the bus into Wichita. In September I went to high school. I worked 3rd shift from 11:30 pm to 6:00 am, go home eat breakfast, clean up and go to school from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm come home study a few hours then go to sleep.

George in Hawaii - 1951 In the Navy now! July 1951

March 11, 1944, I joined the Navy at seventeen (17). After basic training I was sent to Guam. I was transferred to a motor pool and hauled supplied to and from ships to the Naval Supply Depot. Next I transferred to a destroyer, USS Cassin DD-372. The Cassin was involved in the landing of U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima. We bombarded the island a couple of times prior to landings. We operated out of Iwo until the end of the war. While on the Cassin it went through a typhoon, the ocean swells reached as much as 60 ft. I was released from active duty in June 1946 and started at Boeing in sheet metal assembly.  I worked on the B-50 horizontal stabilizer in Plant One, and the B-47A in Plant Two. I was recalled in Sept 1950 due to the Korean War and was assigned to USS Bradford DD-545.  We operated with the U.S. Task Force 77 in the Sea of Japan

I returned to Boeing in January, 1952 and worked in experimental on the B-47s. In 1963 I transferred to Huntsville, AL and worked on the Saturn booster rocket program and. returned to Boeing Wichita three years later. I retired from Boeing in March 1992. Carole and I have been working on “DOC” for three years. I have one son and one daughter and Carole has two daughters and we live in Derby, Ks.

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